


Close Your Eyes

by faerietalks



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Non-graphic death, Pidge Lance and Hunk are small kids, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, but their names aren't mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 14:27:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12937209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerietalks/pseuds/faerietalks
Summary: Shiro visits every night to bring people to sleep, tell them stories and hold their hand. Every night but one.Keith visits everyone, but only once.





	Close Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the folklore of Ole Lukøje, and something I've wanted to write in a fic for a long time. 
> 
> Not Beta-read.   
> Hope you enjoy.

Shiro loved visiting children. 

Their curiosity threatening to keep them awake all night, eager to discover the mysteries of the man dressed in white, whose voice would lull them to sleep and gently hold their hand as they’re drifting off to dreamlands.  
In the morning, few would remember him. Some would imagine he was part of their dream, others would ask their parents, only to be told it must have been shadows playing tricks on them.   
No one would remember him long enough to recognize him the next time he’d visit, once more asking him his name, who he was, why he was there, and how he’d come in. 

“I am sleep itself,” he’d often explained.   
“I am here to make sure you will not be awake all night.”

“My brother is allowed to be awake all night! Why can’t I?” a small girl with amber eyes and wild hair protested.   
‘Because, lord knows, your brother won’t listen to me,’ Shiro grumbled. Teenagers be damned, they were the most difficult to put to sleep, even more than adults and the elderly.

“He is old enough to decide for himself,” was what he told the girl, crouching down next to her bed. “But you, little one, need as much sleep as you can get.”  
“It’s unfair,” the child threw herself back, head hitting the pillow with a soft sound.   
“Such is life,” Shiro said. “But how about I tell you a story instead?” 

The girl looked up, and stifled a yawn as Shiro pulled the covers up to her chin, and started telling a tale, older than the street the girl lives on, even older than himself, and watched as her eyes closed and she drifted off to sleep. 

“I wanted to see the sunrise in the morning, but I keep sleeping for too long,” lamented a small boy.   
This boy, Shiro remembers, used to be awake with awful nightmares. As much control he had over dreams, he could not fend off every demon. But he took solace in seeing the boy look much healthier now, chubby round cheeks and a happy glint in his eyes. 

“I am afraid I can only put you to sleep, you have to awaken on your own,” Shiro reached out and stroked the boy’s hair away from his forehead. 

“Do you ever get lonely, Mr Sleep?” asked the boy. “You always move at night, and you’re always alone. Do you have a friend?”   
“I do have someone I love,” Shiro smiled, casting a glance out the window and up at the stars. “He is all I could ever have dreamed of.” 

“Can I meet him?” the boy asked, and Shiro’s heart stilled for a moment.   
“No, you will not meet him in a long, long time, little one,” Shiro sighed and forced his gaze to remain on the stars.   
“If you were to meet him now, you’d be scared. My love also brings people to sleep, but he can only visit you once, and it is not your time to see him just yet.” 

Shiro loathed visiting some children.   
His heart may not be mortal, and he may not bleed, but the pain he felt in his chest when comforting the sick and dying was real.   
Sometimes he felt guilty. Putting them to rest only for them to awake another day, weaker than before. He was only prolonging their suffering.  
Sometimes he was hopeful, a voice within him whispering that maybe, just maybe, they would pull through and get better. That it wasn’t their time, that he’d get to see them off to their dreamlands many more times, that their family would get to wake up with them many more times. 

But in the end, Shiro knows that just as he is inevitable, so is his love.   
And the brave blue-eyed boy lying awake in his bed, coughing and shivering, is being sent off for the last time. 

“I don’t want to sleep tonight,” he says, voice meek. “The room is too warm and my throat hurts too much.”  
“I know, little one,” Shiro leans down and picks up the child, holding him in his arms.   
“Tonight my love will be your companion, and he will tell you a story that I cannot tell.” 

“Who is he?” the boy clutched Shiro’s cloak in his small fists, the warmth radiating from it and Shiro himself a comforting feeling.   
“He is out there,” Shiro brings the boy up to a window and lets him look outside.   
A man dressed in darkest purple stood outside, waiting beside a horse as black as night. 

“He is not what you think he is,” Shiro started to move through the house, down the stairs and through all doors, hoping the boy would not realize he could have easily phased through them.   
“He is not a skeleton in a shroud of darkness, and he is not a red-eyed fiend born from smoke and ash. His name is Keith, and he will take you on a journey.” 

Slowly approaching, Shiro senses how the small boy tenses up, clings to him harder, and he can hear the soft whimper coming from the child.   
“Don’t be afraid. He can tell you one of two stories, where one is about a beautiful place where all is warm and happiness abounds, and another that is frightful and ugly. But you, little one, are courageous and kind, and will only hear the first one, I’m sure.” 

Soon enough, Shiro stood before his love, still with the child in his arms. The little boy shivered, and could not decide what was worse; staying in the arms of Sleep, now feeling rigid and colder than before, or into the embrace of the unfamiliar man. 

“Hello, little one, I’m here to take you on a journey,” the dark-clad stranger spoke, his voice soft and his arms outstretched. Shiro gently took the boy’s hands in his and slowly uncurled them from his cloak.   
“He’s shivering, don’t let him freeze too much, my dear,” he says as he hands over the child, who quickly turns in Keith’s grip to hide himself in the warmth of dark purple fabric.   
“You know I’d never do that,” Keith reaches out towards Shiro, and caresses his face with his gloved hand. 

“You have a long journey ahead, little one. I know you are tired, but try to stay awake just a moment longer. My love is not as unfriendly as he seems, I promise,” Shiro says with a quiet laugh, and ruffles the boy’s hair one last time. 

Shiro hated handing over children to his love, knowing they’d never wake up again. And he knows Keith dislikes receiving them as well.   
But they both know their duty, and there is nobody Shiro would trust more than Keith, to tell people their final story, as they drift into their final sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on tumblr --> faerietalks.tumblr.com


End file.
